Ah, one of the few days of the year where I can bend the bars, roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape from the shop. Yup, ain’t no Mike at the store today, so you all are just going to have to wait ’til Friday to pick up your extra copies of Frank Miller’s The Spirit Blu-rays for the holiday season. In the meantime, I plan to…hell, I don’t know, what does one do with this “free time” I’ve heard about in whispered legends? …I actually had a customer say to me on Wednesday “you are taking the day off, right? You’re always working!”

This looks like one of those lost weeks here on the blog…late start with a Tuesday post, and ain’t nobody checking in during the holiday weekend, so…yeah, let’s all meet up here again next week. I’ll bring the dip. …Me, I’m the dip, in case you were wondering.

However, let me comment on a couple of things before I send you off to argue with your relatives about the political matter of choice:

1. Saw the Justice League movie, which was just fine. Lots of action, sufficient humor, all the characters got their time (or times) to shine, and was just good old fashioned fun. Not a perfect movie…no movie is perfect, save Cabin Boy…but for folks who’ve been wanting a DC Universe live action movie that isn’t dark and dour, well, here you go! Yes, the villain is just a dude who wants to destroy things for its own sake, but served well as a plot device to spur our heroes into action. And yes, most of the film is about as deep as a sidewalk puddle…no attempts at the “big questions” or themes here, like in MoS or BvS…but that first Avengers movie was empty calories, too, and we all seemed okay with that.

Anyway, the movie’s plenty entertaining, and just from my personal experience, still seems to be attracting audiences…we had to go to two theaters, on a Tuesday night even, to find a showing we could get into.

2. So I got my signed comp copies of Cryptid Cinema in the mail from Steve Bissette, and here’s what he put on my envelope:

WELL HA HA GUESS THIS ENVELOPE IS A PERMANENT PART OF THE COLLECTION, WHAT CAN I DO

I would be happy to ignore the mini-controversy over the Amazons were it not that:

1. Most of the attempts to dismiss it have been mind-searingly stupid, and usually sexist. I would estimate that 90% of the ones that I have seen can be summarized as “Anyone looked like that would want to show off her body!”

2. Literally every single dismissal completely ignores the point of contention, which was (to quote the tweet that I think started it) “Male gaze vs. female gaze.” When a woman was in charge, the Amazons dressed practically. When a man is in charge, they dress like strippers. That some men are not able to recognize the issue (and, as indicated above, in some cases even regard the change as more realistic) only proves the necessity of the complaint.

Here is another reminder that a lot of comics fans actually derive their ideas of, if not reality, then of normality from comics (given, I mean, that 99% of the female characters in comics these days have the bodies and wardrobes of porn stars).

Turan – I explained it somewhat further on the Twitter account, but basically, I noticed a whole two Amazons in midriff-baring outfits, and they were not presented in a titillating fashion. That was my point, that for all the outrage ahead of time, in actual practice it was hardly a factor…maybe a second of screen time?